Borders are the real crisis: a public health perspective on the need for dismantling imagined borders

• Author: Prashasti Bhatnagar
• Position: J.D.-M.P.H. Candidate and Sommer Scholar with a Certificate in Health Disparities and Health Inequality, 2022, Georgetown University Law Center and Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
• Pages: 847-858

CURRENT DEVELOPMENTS

BORDERS ARE THE REAL CRISIS: A PUBLIC

HEALTH PERSPECTIVE ON THE NEED FOR

DISMANTLING IMAGINED BORDERS

PRASHASTI BHATNAGAR*

INTRODUCTION

The United States follows a typical script when it comes to addressing

unauthorized migration. Pictures of migrants at the border are featured on the

front page of every newspaper, intentionally amplifying the violence and

hardships faced by migrants. Some use these pictures to villainize the

migrants, justifying the violence against them. Others attempt to sensational-

ize the hardships endured by the migrants, distracting from the role the

United States has played in provoking the migration it seeks to prevent and

instead, fixating on the economic value of life. In each response, migrants are

characterized as either the “crisis” or the “helpless victims who are good for

our economy,” but never simply and mundanely, as humans.

However, the “border crisis” is an imaginary crisis at political borders,

deliberately constructed to justify border militarization and dehumanization

of (im)migrants and thus, protect the white hegemony. In this paper, I situate

borders as the real crisis that erases the humanity of (im)migrants, creates

their criminality, and at all times, invokes the State as the victim to maintain

the goals of colonial-capitalist regimes. In doing so, I expose how borders

achieve these goals by using and misusing public health and, in the process,

continue to compromise (im)migrant health and safety.

Section I of this paper will briefly discuss the connection between borders

and public health, exposing how the public health interest has consistently

* Prashasti Bhatnagar, J.D.-M.P.H. Candidate and Sommer Scholar with a Certificate in Health

Disparities and Health Inequality, 2022, Georgetown University Law Center and Johns Hopkins

Bloomberg School of Public Health; B.S. Sociology, summa cum laude with minors in Public Health and

Social Justice, 2018, University of Minnesota Twin Cities. © 2022, Prashasti Bhatnagar.

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